Focus
by Unassailable Heart
Summary: All Barbara wants is for Tim to focus, just for two minutes. Tim tries, he really does.
1. Chapter 1

Barbara Gordon sat in front of the Batcomputer and sighed. Filing was boring, but it had to be done eventually. As she organized case and personnel files, her comlink crackled to life.

"Oracle?"

"Red Robin? Are you ok?" she asked, concerned. Tim wasn't supposed to check in for another half hour.

"Oh, well, I ran into these goons trying to hotwire a limo, like, up around forth street. I think it was the Vale's limo."

"And?" Barbara prompted "Was there an altercation? Are you ok?"

"Uh, yeah, yeah definitely. There was a lot of them. Two got away, but eight are unconscious and tied up. They were pretty decent at fighting, but if there hadn't been so many, I think I could have taken them all."

Barbara sighed again. "Tim, where are you? And are you ok?"

"Um, I'm on top of the first national bank, On the west side, with that weird looking statue of the founders son."

Barbara pinched the bridge of her nose. "Tim. Are. You. Alright?"

"Well, I was trying to subdue one guy with this kung fu kick that Dick taught me last month when we were-"

"Tim!" Barbara interrupted. "Are you hurt?"

"Yeah."

Barbara waited. "Tim?"

"Oh! Oh yeah, I've been stabbed."

"You've been-" Barbara took a deep breath. "Ok, Tim, focus. Don't move, and I'll-"

"Well, I'm not on the bank anymore."

Barbara ground her teeth together. "Where are you now?"

"Ok, do you remember last week, when Alfred was making-"

"TIM!"

"...I'm on top of the tea shop," Tim said, sounding upset with being yelled.

"Don't move, I'm sending Dick to come get you," Barbara said. "Keep pressure on that stab wound."

"Ok, I can do that. What should I do about this cut on my head?"

Barbara blinked. "Tim."

"Yeah?"

"You are going to be the death of you."


	2. Chapter 2

Dick slid the top of the Batmobile shut, then reached over and checked Tim's seat belt.

Tim swatted his hands away from the strap. "It's secure!"

Dick rolled his eyes. "Just checking. Pain meds kicking in?"

Tim nodded, relaxing in his seat. "Yep."

"So what happened?"

Tim sighed. "I tried to tell Barbara, but she kept interrupting."

Dick grinned. "She told me to check for a head injury, you were rambling."

"I was not!"

Dick took a corner sharply, and Tim winced as the seat belt pressed against his stab wound. "Ow."

"Sorry," Dick said. "Ok, you have my undivided attention. Tell me all about patrol."

Tim nodded. "It was really quiet for most of it, but when I swung past the Iceberg Lounge, I saw five guys in dark clothes hanging around a limo parked out front, I think it was Vreeland's limo, since her second husband was having some big fiftieth birthday party-"

"Wait wait," Dick held up a hand. "Fifty? That's gross. Isn't Veronica-"

"Thirty six, yeah. I think he's rich. I give it ten more months."

Dick shrugged. "ok then. Sorry, continue."

Tim shifted to get more comfortable in the Batmobile. "So I dropped down onto the roof, of course, and they start talking in some weird language, one even I don't know-"

Dick let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like the word 'nerd', and Tim stopped to glare at him.

"Sorry."

"Anyways, they seemed super agitated, so I tried a few words of Kryptonian, but that only agitated them more, and one pulled out this weird box thing and before I knew it, we had teleported."

"Limo and all?"

"Yep. Of course I instantly recognized that we had traveled to Apokalips-"

Dick let out another cough, but Tim ignored him.

"- and that these were simple goons who must have gotten their hands on advanced tech."

"How'd they do that?"

"I'm getting there. All of us were arrested by some guards, who turned out to be working for Darkseid. We were brought to his fortress, where I found out that they had taken a prototype mother box from the vehicle it was being transported across the planet in. But as Darkseid was sentencing us all to death, I accidentally knocked into a servant, who was carrying drinks, and spilled them all on Darkseid."

"That's really impressive."

"Oh, shut up."

Dick grinned. "Everyone has an awkward phase. But please, continue your tale."

"So it turns out that throwing your drink at someone is a challenge for leadership on Apokalips, and even thought I tried to explain that it was an accident and I just wanted to go home, before I knew it I was facing off against Darkseid in his throne room. Long story short, I won, and was crowned king of Apokalips."

"Wait what?"

"Then, Darkseid brought me this fruit wine stuff the victor is supposed to drink to signify their divine right to rule, but it made me go into anaphylactic shock, which means I couldn't be king, that law was put in place forever ago when this boar man tried to usurp the throne from his step mother- but that's a super long story. Anyways, those goons and I were send to this prison farm type thing, where a few more of the goons compatriots tried to jump me, for revenge or whatever it wasn't even my fault they were caught. And that's when I got stabbed, one of them had a shiv type thing, but I knocked him out right after.

So, another one of them was using a fighting style that seemed very similar to Kung Fu, and I remembered that last month we were watching all those old movies and trying to recreate the fight scenes, and you taught me that move-"

"The blessing of many fractures? The one I specifically told you not to do without supervision because you almost broke your own foot last time?"

"Yeah that one. Anyways, it more or less worked, and he was all 'you have defeated me, and may use me as you wish' and I said 'no thanks' but it tuned out he had this mystical amulet that had been given to him when he defeated the warrior king of a neighboring planet, and it could bend space and time. So I asked him to use it to send me home, and he needed a landmark, so I remembered the bank, and the statue in that little alcove on the side, because the alien kinda looked all metallic like the statue, so he sent me back, but he wasn't very good at using the amulet, because he accidentally send back all ten goons with me. So I had to fight all them again, and I was really tired, so two of them got away but eight are unconscious, and naturally that's when I got the cut on my head-"

"Oh, _naturally._ "

"And then I called Barbara. But there's that amazing tea shop a block from the bank-"

"The one Alfred took us to after our Kung Fu movie marathon?"

"Uh huh. So I went over there and the owner gave me a cup of tea to drink while I waited for you, and then you showed up, and everything after that you were there for."

"... I have got to keep a better eye on you."

"I agree."


End file.
